


The Assistant

by thegingermidget



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Day 10, Frankenstein AU, Igor!Kylo Ren, M/M, gothic horror, mad scientist!Hux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 19:25:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8257571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegingermidget/pseuds/thegingermidget
Summary: Kylo Ren has been hired by Doctor Armitage Hux to assist him in his latest experiments, but what is the Doctor really up to in his laboratory?





	

Kylo Ren came highly recommended from his previous employer. The parchment letter in his hands said so. It also told him that his most recent job request had been accepted by one Doctor Armitage Hux and contained the details of his next form of employment. 

The carriage eased to a stop before a set of wrought iron gates at the mouth of a castle perched high on a hill. Like nails on a chalk board, the gate lifted with a crunching metal screech and the horses continued on to the entrance of the castle. It was raining and their hooves splashed in puddles along the cobblestone.

Swiping the curtains away from the coach's window, Kylo could see the candles glowing in the windows of the castle's first floor and a silhouette framed by that same light in the open doorway.

The driver, as there was no footman to be had, opened the door to the carriage when their journey reached its end. He had no umbrella to avert the rain, but Kylo made no hurry to get to the door.

"Welcome Mr. Ren." said the man at the door. Kylo could see his face much more clearly now. It was a man of slight build, with a lab coat draped over his clothes. "I am Doctor Armitage Hux and welcome to my home."

Kylo thanked him and followed him inside. The driver didn't say a word before the heavy wooden door slammed to a shut and the echo of clattering hooves faded to nothing under the sound of torrential wind and rain.

"As I'm sure I mentioned in my letter, I saw your advertisement and happened to be in need of a new lab assistant. The last one ended his employment here rather suddenly." The Doctor's face grew dark.

"You come with very good recommendations, you know," setting himself on a different tack. "Your last employer seemed very fond." The Doctor seemed to think his lab coat to be improper attire for receiving guests into his home and shrugged it off.

"I work well when the work peaks my interest." Kylo answered, moving towards the radiating warmth of a great fireplace in the foyer.

"Well, I'm not sure if you're familiar with my work," The Doctor made no attempt to see if Kylo was indeed familiar. "but it is rather fascinating if you are of a certain mind."

Kylo moved closer to the Doctor, attracted by a strange glint in eyes that persistently avoided his gaze. 

"I trust you can be held to the utmost degree of secrecy when it comes to my work, Mr. Ren." said the Doctor, looking him square in the eye at last.

"I can be trusted implicitly, Doctor." said Kylo in a deep voice that he felt carried a grave sort of sincerity.

The Doctor laughed, not altogether warmly. "That remains to be seen, but it's good enough for now. Ms. Phasma will take you to your rooms. If you'd like to make accommodations in town for the remainder of your employment she can help you there, but I think it's best if you stay here for the night." A bolt of lightning illuminate the dim foyer.

"I would prefer to remain here, close to work if that's alright. I'm very much looking forward to beginning our work, Doctor."

"As you wish, Mr. Ren and please, call me Hux" Kylo found the use of his surname odd, but enjoyed the familiarity of it. "Let us start by getting you settled and then you can join me down here for dinner in an hour, Phasma will show you the way," he added. "and we'll move on from there."

"Thank you." he said before remembering, "You can call me Kylo, of course." Hux smiled at him, a deceptive, cold and detached thing.

A crack of thunder sounded outside, startling the Doctor. Kylo jumped when he turned to see a very tall woman standing right behind him. He nearly backed into the Doctor out of shock.

"Phasma, if you would take Mr. Ren- my apologies, _Kylo_ ," he corrected, "to his rooms." 

"Yes, sir." 

Ms Phasma was a blonde, stone-faced woman of Amazonian height. Kylo, being of a height himself, found it strange to look her in the eye. 

They walked up the main staircase and down a hall to another staircase, and some ways after that. Kylo was fairly certain he wouldn't be able to find the front door again if he tried. 

"Your rooms are on the third floor on the eastern wing of the castle. You will be able to ring me from your rooms should you need anything. The Doctor's rooms are in the Western wing, but you are not to call upon him there under any circumstances." She spoke in the manner of a general commanding her troops, but with the strange accent of the region. He realized Hux did not.

"Understood. I won't be much trouble." When Phasma did no attempt further conversation, Kylo decided to attempt to satisfy his curiosity. "Have you worked here long?"

"I have been here my whole life." They finished the final flight of stairs.

"You've always lived in the castle?"

Rounding another corner and picking up the pace with her incredibly long legs, Kylo lengthened his own to keep up. "My family has been the caretakers of this castle for generations. The Doctor's family have owned the castle for less time."

If Kylo's sense of direction was right, his room should be somewhere down this hallway. "And you're happy living your whole life to serve someone else? Don't you wish you could be the scientist down in the laboratory or whatever dream fills your head at night?"

They stopped before a door and Phasma opened it wordlessly with a key she passed to him as he stepped inside. Kylo dropped his bags in the center of the room and spun to take a look around. The rooms were spacious and ornate. A small fire was crackling in the hearth to keep the room warm. Lush furnishings and warm colors attempted to make up for the damp cold of living in a castle. It almost worked.

Phasma still stood in the doorway. "I have wanted to do exactly what I am doing all my life. Though I haven't known the Doctor as long as I have known this castle, I am sure that we are both in the roles that suit us best. Not that there is any chance of me leaving, I know the Doctor has no business in upholding such an estate as this. I was made for order and perfection. The Doctor, while I'm sure he does marvelous work in the sciences, does not have that predilection."

Her speech halted over the last few words. She knew it wasn't her place to talk in this way about her employer, but she also felt enough confidence in the security of her position to say whatever she wanted. 

"Ring for me when you have finished unpacking and I shall bring you to dinner in an hour." and with that she left.

He hadn't brought much in the way of clothes or personal items with him. The two bags he brought contained the entirety of his wardrobe and his supplies. His stocks of herbs would need to be replenished, but his mortar and pestle, spell books and stones had survived the journey.

Kylo Ren was no ordinary lab assistant, randomly chosen to aid a scientist in his boring experiments out in the middle of nowhere. Kylo Ren was a witch, and he knew exactly what Doctor Armitage Hux was doing in his mysterious castle. He just needed to get the good Doctor to trust him. Dinner would loosen his tongue.

His previous employer, the one with outstanding references, had been his teacher and had brought Hux to Kylo's attention. It seemed that Kylo's talents would be of invaluable help to him, even if he was unaware of their existence. His former employer had assure Kylo that Hux was attempting to bring the dead back to life, and was very close to succeeding. Indeed, Doctor Armitage Hux had come farther than anyone in history in the effort to reanimate dead life forms. Kylo had come to help him succeed.

He tried to make himself presentable enough for dinner with his host. Nothing he owned was even close to formal wear, mainly consisting of black robes like the kind he was wearing. He removed the ones he was wearing in favor of clean ones and called it adequate.

Dinner was a passable affair. The Doctor was not one for idle conversation and did not seem to be ready to discuss the intricacies of his work with a complete stranger. Kylo, who really wasn't a much better conversationalist on a normal basis, struggled to make headway. 

In the end, it didn't matter because the Doctor brought him down to the laboratory regardless at the end of their meal.

On one hand, Kylo expected more from a modern scientist's place of work. On the other, they were in a centuries old castle that was likely not built with a laboratory in the plans. Regardless, the place was somewhat of a mess.

Papers were scattered with no apparent organization, chemicals were left drying on the sides test tubes, and thick gray cobwebs seemed to be the glue that held everything in place.

"I apologize for the mess. I've learned to make due since moving in, but I grant that appearances might be a bit startling for the unprepared." He stepped over wires and books stacked on the floor to reach a long covered table. The Doctor reached over the table to take the sheet off of it, sending a cloud of dust into the air.

The table was either made for surgery and altered to suit its new purpose or had belonged to an asylum of sorts. It was a cold metal slab with manacle locks attached to where the feet, hands, and head of a person would be. Hux gazed upon it with affection in his eyes.

"I realize now that in order for my work to have any success in the near future, I am going to have to put my trust in you, regardless of any hesitations I still harbor. I need you to listen to me very carefully." He stared deeply into Kylo. "You've said I can trust you and while I don't know if that's true yet, I am also going to ask you to trust me. The experiments you'll be assisting me with are the sum of my life's work and I need you to treat them with the utmost solemnity. Regardless of what I am about to tell you, I need you to swear on your honor that you will never utter these words to another living soul."

"Yes." whispered Kylo. Hux stepped towards him.

"I need you to swear it." They were nearly touching.

"I swear."

"Good." he stepped past Kylo and began climbing the stairs out of the dungeon laboratory. 

"Where are you going?" Kylo called up to him.

Hux's figure was framed in the light of the torch-lit stairwell up to the rest of the castle and the world beyond. His frame was small, but the height and sharpness of his lines made him seem almost heroic at a distance. " _We_ , my darling new assistant, are going to find our monster. Get your coat, we don't have a moment to lose." He swept up the stairs and Kylo hastened to catch him.

Hux had prepared a coach into town and the two of them hurried off into the night. Their destination was the town's graveyard where their monster was lying in wait, decomposing just beneath the earth.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't plan on writing this today, it just sort of happened. I've had the idea for a while and decided this morning that today's prompt made today the day to act on it. Talk to me about it on tumblr! @keep-on-leggin


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